


So Beautifully Bold

by thatsrightdollface



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Brotherhood, Fluff, Gen, Thor Ragnarok SPOILERS, but it was inspired by a line in a Modest Mouse song?, it's not exactly a songfic, this is post-movie, this is very self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 09:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12702468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatsrightdollface/pseuds/thatsrightdollface
Summary: “It honestly was beautifully bold, like trying to save an ice cube from the cold.” – “Fire it Up” by Modest Mouse





	So Beautifully Bold

It had been a frenzied day, and that was even by Loki’s standards.  Asgard had been first championed and then intentionally blown to scraps of charcoal and dust, for one thing.  Oops.  Loki himself had first attempted to double-cross his brother Thor into what he’d imagined would be _temporary_ misery and servitude and then swept into the battlefield ready to fight alongside him.  A day of contradictions, really, but trickster gods usually liked those borderlines, those baffling non-spaces.  Loki very much liked when people wrote essays about him, and trickster god essays often said things like that.  A frenzied day was the sort of thing Loki had been made for.   

Though by now, yes, he was exhausted.  All that remained of Asgard were its people, and they’d been bundled up into a ship Loki’d helped a mysteriously chipper rock monster fly from Sakaar.  He’d made an appropriately dramatic entrance while Thor was fitting on his new Odin-ish metal eyepatch, and gotten hugged for the first time in what felt like decades.  Thor pulled Loki up against him, tentative at first and then squeezing him tight.

_“If you were here, I could hug you.”_

_“I’m here.”_

Loki knew what his brother expected of him – distance and brooding, ulterior motives, all that old song and dance.  It was a tired performance for both of them, though.  Loki hadn’t realized how completely until he’d been called out and zapped and told he was still believed in, somehow.

For a moment, Loki was afraid Thor would laugh away his offer to reach out and pull him close.  Change the subject.  Pick some sort of – possibly deserved? – fight with him again.  But maybe he shouldn’t have doubted that ridiculous mountain of a brother he had, though doubt came easier to him than breathing.  He’d been swallowed up in Thor’s warmth, there, and almost let himself relax into the steadiness of him.  He’d made a joke so he could feel laughter rumbling deep in Thor’s chest, and so it would be just a little less awkward when he pulled away.  Loki wouldn’t remember the joke later, but whatever it was Thor’s eyes had been soft and familiar.  Almost as if the years of anger between them could be brushed away, in time.  If Thor could stay trusting; if Loki could stay kind.

In that moment, he very much _wanted_ to be kind.  He wondered how he’d feel the next day, and the next, of course – sometimes his existence was like a tightrope act full of unnecessary flourishes and swaying.  Sometimes he wondered why his bitter thoughts could make such a puppet out of him, growing in the dark, rotten places of his mind.  Loki was just so _cold_ , sometimes.  He didn’t feel the wrongness of a thing until it was too late to take it back. 

And then he was like, “Hah!”  Because of _course_ he was cold – he was a frost giant, after all, born to be Thor’s enemy.  And then that bitterness started all over again, like it had never really faded at all.

Still, the way Loki’s bones ached just then was a different sort of ache.  It was pure, in a way.  The feeling of that devilish smile twisting up his lips when Thor unleashed all his godly lightning on their awful sister hadn’t quite faded.  That in itself had been a strange thing, really.  Usually, Loki smiled like that while playing one of his nastier tricks.  Thor being amazing, just then, had felt a little like Loki being amazing himself.  It was the first time in a long, long while.  Since they were kids, probably, and Thor pulled off some goofy stunt Loki’d orchestrated for him. 

Something like that. 

Point was, lots of time had passed between offering a smooth-as-silk compliment about Thor’s new eyepatch – if Loki _did_ say so himself – and where he found himself now.  They’d all arranged themselves theatrically in front of the space windows, staring out at an unfriendly void they’d be wandering for the next little while.  Thor had been dragged so many different ways, offering reassurances and quips, gathering up enough food for the Asgardian masses.  He’d made sure Loki ate, too, which was honestly a little touching…  Though he didn’t sit still long.  Just a couple years back, Loki would’ve been furious watching Thor play at being king.  Ah, no. _Watching Thor rule_.  That was probably the right way to say it?  It would have felt like a punch to the face, no matter what the semantics, the kind of punch that left his brain rattling and made any spells he’d been casting flicker off like a Midgardian TV.  He would have wanted to tear his brother down, and watch his confused puppy smile fade.

Now, though, Loki found himself looking for somewhere to sleep.  Chambers were stuffed full of cots and sleeping civilians, though – aliens were milling around all over the place, and Thor was off somewhere being busy.  Loki refused to sleep in a hallway, and nobody had exactly assigned him a bunk, yet.  This was all a while before he and Thor would stand with their arms folded neatly behind them in front of another, marginally less imposing space window…  This was a while before their next adventure would start up in terrifying earnest.

Loki didn’t like letting his guard down in front of anyone, and he could only keep so much of himself alert while sleeping.  Part of him wanted to get pissy about this – the king (or whatever)’s own brother, left wandering the ship like an unwelcome omen, with plenty of people either seeming to glare at him or shooting confused looks over like, _“Wait, why is he here, again?”_   But after all that had just happened, after he’d imagined how he might have once been Thor’s world, exactly the way he said…  Loki wasn’t going to let those bitter roots sink into him just yet.

So, logically, he made his way back to those chambers where Thor had been in trying out eyepatches and commandeered his bed.  Honestly, he just flopped down on top of it, groaning some frustrated commentary to himself.  He’d sealed all the doors nice and tight, and figured at least if he got ambushed here Thor would be able to identify his remains and wreak appropriate vengeance. 

It was a nice thought, Thor wanting to wreak vengeance for him.  Loki imagined it for a while – Thor’s messy revenge, with all its inevitable yelling and that one remaining eye getting drowned out by crackling blue lightning heat.  He didn’t wake up again until a little later, when all the lights were still nice and dim and space was still hurtling by facelessly around them.  At first he just shifted blearily, still lost somewhere in a haze of disconnected, raging dreams, and then he realized the sheets were being scooted out from under him.  Strong, too-warm arms were shifting him up on to a pile of softness – heavy pillows he’d ignored when first claiming the bed as his own.  Someone was prying off his boots and setting them gently by the edge of the bed; someone was folding heavy blankets all around him.

For a moment, Loki thought it was his mother, but it couldn’t have been.  And then he realized.  Only one person on that ship would have rough, protective hands like that, and still be willing to use them to keep _him_ comfortable.

Loki didn’t get cold, usually, being a creature with icy skin and blood that might as well have just been kept in the refrigerator – and he was definitely going to shove the blankets off him as soon as Thor turned his back – but when he pried one of his eyes open and saw his brother grinning down at him…  Well.  Loki would have chattered his teeth and held his arms around himself, just then.  He would have borrowed mittens and a stupid hat. 

Maybe he just forgot to be embarrassed.  This wasn’t like doing “Get Help” for some strangers – this was like Thor actually wanting to care for him.  Maybe he was relieved, or overwhelmed, or unsure if he was dreaming. 

“Shhh.  Back to sleep, brother,” Thor said, and Loki closed his eyes, snorting a breath like laughter through his nose.  It was far too warm under all those blankets.  Didn’t Thor know anything about him at all?


End file.
